Author
Topic: Fiire Chief (Read 1746 times)

And here it is again. Been reading posts about this for a while now. Can someone point me in the right direction to get this to work properly? If i want to assign the keyboard f7 button to the menu button, how do i do this? I can't figure it out.

The Fiire Chief requires direct communication with the USB bus to work properly. There is code to do this in Orbiter to directly handle the Fiire Chief, and was added for LinuxMCE 0704. Starting with LinuxMCE 0810, the USB HID subsystem tries to capture the Fiire Chief device itself, and does not allow libusb to talk to the device. The relevant code is in src/Orbiter/Linux/HIDInterface.cpp, and needs to be ported to use the hidraw kernel device.

I was able to get the Fiire Chief to pair correctly by going out into a shell when orbiter is running, and typing

Well, I tell you what. Your the expert here. You would benefit from a fiire chief more than i would, as I will be using the new releases as they come out. Would need this tweak every time right? If you are interested I will trade you a comparable remote that you probably have dozens of (I have seen your vids of unwrapped goodies in the background, or is that store stuff?). Anyway, if your interested let me know what you think is fair. Or what it would cost to have this done.

It was a custom remote that Pluto had Gyration build for their one licensee at the time (Fiire), and as such, it was numbered GYR3202RF. It sported a lot of custom design features, and Gyration won't make any more of them.

I can tell you in hindsight, that the Fiire remote was an abject failure, for a few reasons:

* The overall build quality of the remotes is terrible. The two remotes that I did have, suffered different breakages, and are of absolutely terrible build quality (the tolerances present in the battery compartment alone are absolutely horrible, and this thing should never have passed QA)* The original Gyration 3101 remotes had a gyro on/off toggle, which also acted as a re-center for the gyro. This ensured that the gyro worked predictably, and did not drift for more than a given mouse cycle. In the custom 3202, the gyro on/off was replaced by the Menu button, and the gyro on/off was replaced by custom HID packets that turned the gyro on and off programmatically in response to menu events. This sounded great in theory, but in practice it caused a huge number of problems. The first of which, the device, having no way to re-center itself, would start drifting uncontrollably in a direction (because the device would incorrectly center itself at very odd times due to the programmatic on/off), and the only way to deal with this, would be to sit the device down, while still active, then leave the menu, which would then reset the device, but if you moved the device AT ANY POINT while doing this, your gyro would be off center, and you would start drifting again. This doesn't even discount the fact that the gyro on/off code happens in the loop while decoding both button presses and mouse movements, which makes the mouse cursor stutter at very odd times, as if it is stuck to fly paper. This would happen often enough, that anyone's wife would contemplate homicide.* Since the gyro remote is only turned on/off programmatically, and only at certain times, it is _VERY_ easy to leave the remote inadvertently on, and drain the battery VERY quickly.* Pluto rushed UI2 out the door, and there remain a wide variety of inconsistencies that were never addressed in the UI, which is why some things (the main menu, you can select by holding down the menu button, and releasing), while other things, you must use the left mouse button to select. It was quite maddening, and it should never have been released in this state.* The dongles, of which you needed one for every media director in the house, are impossible to find now, because again, like the remote, they were custom designed for the transceiver in the remote. Pluto honestly expected family members each to have one of these remotes, and multiples of these dongles. and at $150 a pop, there was NO way this was viable.

While I do understand what needs to be done to make it work, I do not know how long it will take to debug, and given the list of black hole inducing negatives that I've posted above, I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to use these devices.

You want a solution? Pick up an Android tablet, and use the Android Orbiter for now, when qOrbiter is ready, it will run on it too. Use an android phone, or an iOS device like an iPad, or get an O2 Joggler and install the Orbiter software on it. Use an IR remote if you wish, or any number of web enabled devices with the web orbiter. The Fiire Remote was a half baked solution, at best, and never worked smoothly on its best days.

This would happen often enough, that anyone's wife would contemplate homicide.

LOL! I do remember the drawbacks. Ghost drifting, Turning off and then sometimes making me reload the router to get it functioning again. Drifting in the middle of a search in a movie and ending up at the end of the movie. Like it had a mind of its own. It just bothers me to no end that I spent 200+ dollars on this thing and It does NOTHING. Its a useless universal remote. Take out the batteries, BAM, gotta do it all over again. It just sits there and mocks me! Friends pick it up and ask "Whats this". I hang my head and say "A worthless 200 dollar remote". There has to be something that its useful for. I will give it to someone who can reverse engineer the thing. At least my efforts were not in vain! Android orbiter is tits though! I use it all the time. Especially when the woman is sitting watching dawsons creek. "Why did the computer turn off?" ME: "You must have done something to it! Were you sitting on the keyboard again?" Good times.

Thom... what is this "Android Orbiter" of which you speak?As far as I was aware, you have two choices on an Android device - Qorbiter (in development) and Web Orbiter 2.0? Android Orbiter? Where do I find it and how do I install it?

Thom... what is this "Android Orbiter" of which you speak?As far as I was aware, you have two choices on an Android device - Qorbiter (in development) and Web Orbiter 2.0? Android Orbiter? Where do I find it and how do I install it?